$100,000 for a motor home for dogs? $50 million for a personal luxury jet? Embezzling funds to buy trucks, jewelry, a fishing boat, a Lexus, a motorcycle and life insurance? Illegal loans? Hush money paid to cover-up sex scandals? These are only a few of the accusations being made in lawsuits between the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) and one of its former employees.

TBN, which bills itself as the world's largest Christian network and maintains what the Los Angeles Times calls an "opulent" headquarters compound in Costa Mesa, CA, is getting a rare light shined on its operations thanks to the dueling lawsuits.

PS: Journalist William Lobdell,* former Religion reporter for the Los Angeles TIMES did a series of articles on the inside corruption at TBN more than 10 years ago, including Paul Crouch, Sr.'s homosexual trysts with employees...and 6-figure payouts to keep them quiet. It had absolutely no effect on curtailing the amount of "donations." It seems as though all you have to do is get on TV and say "JEEEZ-us," and the sheeple will send you their last dime. Even max out their credit cards in the hopes of receiving financial "blessings" from....???

*Lobdell is the author of Losing My Religion, a wrenching account of how he was courted, and won by the evangelicals, but forgot to leave his penchant for objectivity at the "door." He always had trouble with the contradictions of how a "loving" father-god could be so bloodthirsty at the same time, and was slowly, almost unconsciously beginning to doubt. The Catholic pedophile cases he covered as part of his job were the final straw. (He reported on the first civil case in the US which was actually decided in the plaintiff's favor. His last religion reporting was on the St. Michaels Island, Alaska, obscenities.) It took him a couple more years to finally "come out" as a non-believer. (He's one of those people who has been conditioned to avoid the word "atheist." we have to do something about that!)